


[DISCONTINUED] Blood on the World’s Hands

by ladystardusts



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: 1940s, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - 1940s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Light Angst, Military, Military Backstory, Nightmares, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Out of Character, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-World War II, References to Iron Maiden, References to Nirvana, Repressed Feelings, Romantic Fluff, Romantic Friendship, Royalty, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, World War II, also unlike station to station this actually has an outline idk if that makes a difference, gundham is a little ooc here but shh, this all started when i was listening to dance of death and thinking about sondam one day, very briefly mentioned and very late into the story tho so you don’t need to worry abt it now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:02:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25717750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladystardusts/pseuds/ladystardusts
Summary: Gundham Tanaka hates the royals. As a former soldier in the Second World War, he has no respect for those in power who never had to work for it.And yet, he cannot bring himself to hate Princess Sonia of Novoselic. His affection soon entwines his fate with her web of lies, love, blood, and betrayal.
Relationships: Sonia Nevermind/Tanaka Gundham
Comments: 10
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

Time seemed to stop when he told it to.

Clad in his muted brown army uniform and hoisting up front a rifle and in the back a rucksack — he’d messily shoved into it water bottles, ammunition, a first aid kit, and a change of clothing — Gundham Tanaka toiled closer into enemy territory. He trudged slowly and carefully so his own breathing blew quiet as the sound of the dull, deviant grass folding under his combat boots. His fellow infantrymen had spread themselves out so far that he could sneak a glance at the soldier nearest to him and see a body instead of an individual. A single bead of sweat traveled down his pale, warm skin as the smoky midday sun beat down on him, and dispersed in between the hairs on his brow. Cradling the forearm of his gun, Gundham felt only the here and now.

He fought under the flag of the Kingdom of Novoselic. However, that meant nothing to him. It meant nothing in the sense that he shared very little with his fellow men the nationalism as ingrained in culture as the institution of marriage. He knew that many, if not all Novoselics were extremely patriotic. The average Novoselic man valued his family, his country, and his own life, in that order. The vast majority of men Gundham came to know in his six years of military service enlisted out of an unconditional love for their country; they harbored a desire for honor and a passion for the pursuit of becoming a model Novoselic citizen. They spoke endlessly of doing whatever it took for their country as soldiers. It seemed a game to them. They would burst out laughing while playing their game of empty promises, each one more drastic than the next, as to how far they would go to protect the kingdom. 

Of course, this nationalism was nowhere near blind faith. Whatever Novoselic citizens contributed to their kingdom, their kingdom gave twice as much in return. The royals surely were not dictators; they ruled under the consent and contentment of the governed. They were not idealistic in their policies either; they showed mercy to all but the merciless, and for the merciless the unwavering sense of justice that had won the trust of the kingdom drew itself out.

The king presented himself a warm, peaceful individual and his wife, a queen regnant, was never not seen by his side in public. The two had only one descendant, a daughter in her mid-twenties. If both father and mother died, and she had found a husband before that could happen, the throne would be hers. The Novoselic royals, as did the rest of the kingdom, lived simply and happily, united and protected. There seemed no reason to harbor hostility.

And that was just Gundham’s problem.

He did not hate the royals for anything they’d done to break anyone’s trust. He hated them simply for being royals. Gundham was not the only one with these beliefs, as that was how he came to know that they were quite the unpopular opinion. The royals lived their lives in luxury, traveling around the country on private trains and hosting glamorous parties and overseeing production of the wine and chocolate that put the Kingdom of Novoselic on the map. However, Gundham did not hate all who were rich or successful. He saw some truth in the concept of rags to riches, watching it play out for many he knew personally. He only hated those who did not have to work for their power. The same family had ruled Novoselic for thousands of years. The same family transferred the same power through the same silver spoon and same, ancient concept of birthright.

Birthright. What a disgusting reality, Gundham would say, having influence and power handed to you just for being born. 

The here and now set within him once again. It helped to numb the weight of time itself sweeping through him. Gundham kept his gun — a lightly worn LT94, the standard rifle for most Novoselic infantrymen — snug in both his hands. He felt his heart thump within his chest. He rose farther, still lodged on top of the ground and feeling formless like a ghost. For the most part, Gundham was well-hidden thanks to the natural colors of his combat gear and the manner in which he moved. He’d been laying low for what felt like anywhere between five minutes to five hours. His vision floated in front of him, trying to focus as a camera would.

He’d gotten used to a life spent on and off the battlefield. Six years of service did wonders for the soul. He began not to see a difference between the two. Gundham thought of himself as a machine at times. He no longer remembered how to behave according to his factory settings, as they didn’t translate well into a life like this. While the reprogramming enhanced his attention to detail and shaped him into more of a leader, someone not only men who ranked under him could look up to, sometimes he looked in the mirror and saw a purpose instead of a man.

A year before he first enlisted in the army, there was no Second World War and Gundham was a completely different person. He had a fascination with death and the dead, and equally as much with what happens after. He cared for his mother in his spare time, for she was the only family he had in the kingdom itself. He had dreams of veterinary school; he was an animal lover, maybe even on a deeper level than he loved other people. He had an aura of mysticism that frightened almost all that approached him, and because of that others found it hard to make friends with him. Now more than ever he realized how much he had lost in six years: his mother, his potential, his passion, and the callow, eighteen-year-old boy that received his very first order for basic training.

Gundham acted out of instinct. He curled one leg and used it to push himself up and rise. Clutching his rifle in one hand and adjusting his helmet with another, he shifted his focus to extending his field of view. For a moment, he truly did feel disconnected from not only time but his own body.

Then, something grabbed him and forced him back down to reality.

What Gundham felt next was visceral as he collapsed in pain. He exhaled a slow, controlled breath and pushed himself up again. This was no time to fall, he thought. Gundham steadied his gun again and this time he found it harder to even move his fingers the way he wanted them to. He felt as if he were lifting a dumbbell, growing in weight until he no longer had the energy to so much as lift his own arm off the grass.

The pain soon became unbearable. Gundham felt like he’d just had all of his internal organs forced out from under his skin. In no time at all it pervaded his mind, the urge to attend to it growing stronger like a parasite. His muscles loosened. He felt paralyzed and had convinced himself in that moment he was going to die any minute now. Writhing around in agony, thinking he had a chance of displacing the overwhelming sensation, he let out a harsh, deep-seated scream.

“Tanaka!”

Soon enough someone tumbled close to Gundham, flipping him on his side so that he lay on his back. He heard his surroundings in echoes, and even what he could make out did not seem to make sense. Still, his vision hadn’t given out enough for him not to tell that the man was one of his unit’s combat medics. Scrunching his nose and staring just below Gundham’s eyes with a newfound sense of urgency, the man dragged his body farther toward level ground and tried to keep him from flailing around any more.

Then, Gundham underwent a new sensation. He felt as if he’d been pushed into a pool of warm water. Overlapping it was numbness in his limbs as they endured an imaginary swelling. The sense was oppressive, so intense he could barely feel the medic ripping through his clothes like wrapping paper on Christmas morning. 

Nothing made sense anymore. He exposed the underside of his chin to the medic, staring at the desaturated blue sky until the clouds formed vague shapes of only one color. Everything felt slow and uncertain. His own heartbeat thumped in his ears. The primal rushes of adrenaline came to him in waves. He saw the medic give a small syringe a few taps but could barely feel whatever was in it coursing through his veins. His eyes darted to his lower body, chest fully exposed and covered in blood.

His own blood.

Gundham saw red — staring down at his own, desecrated body made the red come in spots and flickers from behind his eyes — and the sight drained all of his energy out of him. He never thought his own jaw could feel so heavy. He saw red for a moment, frozen in time, until he saw nothing at all.

* * *

Gundham recognized his situation all too well.

The sunlight shone on the hospital beds and into his eyes from an opening in the tent. The light did not come in rays, but rather in a gentle glow. Gentle was, however, far from what this environment had to offer.

Under the forest green canvas held death coated in the guise of life. Olfactory torture came in the form of disinfectant and anesthetics, to overwhelm the sharp stench of blood. He looked to his right and scanned over a young man, bound lying on his back to a bed like his and with an untrained eye assumed dead if not for his chest, rising and falling a quarter of a minute for each breath. An off-white, wrinkled blanket covered Gundham’s body up to just under his collarbone. It was not the most comfortable, but it would suffice in preventing him from seeing the wound that had driven him to lose consciousness. This was not his first hospital stay, so he had no trouble coming to his senses and recognizing his own environment.

What he did not recognize was the touch of a gentle, slender hand caressing his cheek.

Gundham swiveled his head to his left in aggressive hyper-vigilance. A young lady hovered over him, stroking his cheek with one hand and flashing him a warm smile. The woman’s standard clean, white nurse’s garb fit rather loosely over her slim, youthful body; her nursing cap held her shiny obsidian hair neatly in place. Her gray eyes were like those of a doe’s, and her lips and cheeks were stained the color of cherry blossoms. The nurse’s other hand shot up to cover her mouth as tears welled up in her eyes. Gundham thought to do nothing as she approached the brink of tears, and then just as quickly donned a more professional demeanor. She clasped both her hands together and relayed her first message to him.

“You have no idea how lucky you are to be alive.” she said. Her voice was high and songlike, and she spoke with a timidity that Gundham imagined brought out a potential lover’s natural protective instinct.

Gundham’s body relieved itself of its tension. ”How long have I been in this bed?” he asked her, pushing aside any sentiment as best he could.

“If I had to guess, I’d say close to a few hours.” She held Gundham’s head with both hands and fixed it back into place. “But you can’t go back now, you still need plenty of rest and fluids.”

He paused, thinking her words over. “What happened to me?”

“We had to have you undergo emergency surgery and remove a bullet to the abdomen.” The nurse briefly propped up his head and adjusted the fullness of his pillow. “To be specific, the bullet damaged your stomach and large intestine.“ Gundham remembered the shock and stomach pain from out on the battlefield and cringed. The shock was starting to set in as he realized he really had been shot. “How are you feeling?”

“Nothing,” Gundham mumbled. It was true; the mix of confusion, anger, initial shock, and numbness cancelled each other out and created nothing. He lifted his arm from under the blanket, and the nurse promptly set it back down. She walked off to the end of the rows of hospital beds, briefly leaving Gundham alone with his thoughts.

In terms of his body, he did feel weak. The pain, however, was no longer as overwhelming as on the battlefield thanks to morphine, penicillin, and the care of the field nurses. If there was anything the Kingdom of Novoselic performed right, it was hospitality even in the most dire times. His stomach pain, over time, felt less like that of a gunshot wound and more of a simple punch in the gut. He found it hard to believe that he was writhing on the grass in agony and bodily disconnect so many hours before now. Still, he felt sapped of his energy and shrouded in hyperawareness.

Now that the nurse had left his side, Gundham’s mind wandered over to lifting his arm and seeing what was under the blanket. He tilted his head downward so that his chin touched the top of his chest. His arms rose, both his hands first like a pop culture zombie. Both limbs were weights, heavier than any he’d handled before in a state like his, but he knew this was his only opportunity to satisfy his curiosity before a nurse came back to check on him. The blanket, thin and smooth like paper to the touch, lifted enough for Gundham to look at what it covered.

The nurses had changed his pants for him; instead of his lower-body combat gear he was barefoot wearing pale blue, striped pajama pants. Above his lower body was the wave of disconnect that washed over him like cold water on a sleeping man. Gundham could not make out a discernible bullet wound from the layers of bandages over his abdomen. Little drops of blood seemed to have absorbed in sparse positions into the off-white gauze. Gundham found no way to tell whether or not they were fresh, giving him no further clue exactly how long the bandages had been wrapped around him.

The nurse couldn’t have taken more than a full minute after Gundham examined the bandages before she returned to his side. “After you’re well enough to tend to yourself, we’ll help you start the process for your medical separation.” she said, speaking like she was forcing out her words.

Gundham’s heart skipped a beat. “Medical separation?” He lifted his neck to look the nurse in the eye. “As in a discharge?” he said with a nervous laugh.

“Oh, forgive me if I run this by you so insensitively.” The corners of her mouth formed a frown. She raised both her shoulders and wore the timid tone he first heard her use. “With the damage to your internal organs, you should be looking toward taking care of that bullet wound for the rest of your life.” She seemed to feign that timidity, as if to put on the ruse of sympathy for someone she knew and cared nothing about. A move like that proved professional below the surface. “I’ve seen men die right under these tents from wounds like yours. You really should feel lucky.” she stuttered.

Gundham felt as if her words had stolen his very soul from him. Sure, he’d be coming home. No more lying inside the ground or waking up to gunshots or anything that came with being in the middle of combat.

But that was all he knew.

He’d heard from veterans of the first world war that the transition from life in the military to life as a civilian was much more challenging to endure than vice versa. Gundham knew that the skills he had picked up from six years of service were no total waste, but the specifics he’d spent so long perfecting had no basis in a civilian lifestyle, let alone an average Novoselic lifestyle. He knew he’d almost miss the strange majesty and novelty of military life. He knew that because it was all he knew.

The life Gundham would have had if he had been there to care for his mother, attend veterinary school, find love, find and write to his family in Japan, live peacefully, live the way he’d wanted flashed in milliseconds before his eyes. When he was younger he thought he was invincible; he’d lived behind a wall with a six-year shelf life and now that wall came crashing down before his eyes.

He had no one to blame for such an intense reaction. Not his family, not his superiors, not the Novoselic royals, not the young nurse staring behind the vacancy in his eyes. He had no one to blame for it but himself. 


	2. Chapter 2

Gundham never knew much about his father.

What he did know about him went through a filter in the form of his mother, and even she had to be carefully driven out of secrecy in little moments. Gundham was just shy of his thirteenth birthday when one day he asked what he’d asked ever since his lips could form the words — “when is Dad coming home?” — and his mother told him everything. Instead of telling white lies as she did for she did not feel her son was mature enough for the truth, lying that he’d gone out for groceries or set out to attend to business far out of town or taken a lengthy vacation, she told the boy what he deserved to know. 

Fumiko Tanaka, nearing twenty and harvesting her first fruits of independence, fell pregnant after the First World War. Just as Gundham knew nothing about his father, Fumiko knew just as much about her assailant. The man frequented the veterans-only bar near where he attacked her, was much older than her, and most likely would never have cared for his unborn child. Fumiko never saw the man again, and thus he never even knew he’d fathered a child. Her pregnancy disgusted her family, puzzlingly more so than the man who violated her. As a result, they no longer acknowledged her as a Tanaka daughter. She went cross-eyed studying English for hours in her free time and spent months planning her search for refuge in the small Eastern European monarchy in which she would live out the rest of her days. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy, whom she christened Gundham; the name was a variation of an old English word that meant “freedom.” Fumiko kept for the two of them her surname Tanaka not as an act of compassion towards the family that had disowned her, but rather one of resilience. 

Though the baby son she birthed on Novoselic soil had his father’s eyes and would grow into his build as he matured, Fumiko did not see her boy as a constant reminder of her trauma. Looking into Gundham’s innocent eyes, she saw a silver lining in the darkest and most tragic of clouds. Fumiko, in her strict, motherly tone, relayed to her son the ugly truth of why his father would never come home. Should he ever try and come home, she promised the boy he would not leave her presence alive. 

Gundham wished he knew absolutely nothing about his father.

Fumiko and Gundham received their Novoselic citizenship nearly twenty years before the country’s World War II-era Japanese diaspora. Before then, the majority of Novoselics had never even considered the fact that foreigners, let alone those hailing from somewhere as distant as Japan, could live and work as they did. The sentiment, most of the time, was not an intentionally offensive refusal to accept change but rather an initial shock of learning to embrace it. The royal family publicly welcomed immigrants with open arms, treating them as they would someone born and raised Novoselic. Because the country trusted the royals sometimes more than they trusted themselves, most grew to share the family’s stance. A loud minority of Novoselic patriots, however, perceived the matter differently.

At three years old, Gundham had cigarette smoke blown in his eyes for the first time. Fumiko, stone-faced and blood boiling, gripped his small hand as tightly as she could and encouraged him to keep walking. At six years old, Gundham did not understand why the owner of the local fruit stand cited Fumiko being an ”ugly chink” as a reason to refuse the two service; at eight a blonde, green-eyed, freckle-faced little girl from school called him the same thing. At eleven he grew used to the stares, at fourteen his mother stopped packing him Japanese food for his school lunches, and at sixteen the two drafted an intangible pact to speak only English at home.

When Gundham reached seventeen, his mother lost both her jobs. He swung open the door to his home that day to find her trembling, hunched over on the couch in an almost catatonic shock until she saw his face and rose to throw herself onto him in a hug. She did not cry; instead she let out little, pained whimpers as her son guided her head under his chin and stroked her thin, ebony hair.

Fumiko took to working odd jobs to pay for necessities, as did Gundham. He would not see his mother often, as she was either working or, if ever at home, she was asleep. If he did find her sleeping, he would expose her forehead, plant a gentle kiss on top of it, and pray to whatever lay beyond for some form of deliverance. Sometimes Fumiko would sell household items, from charming Japanese trinkets to entire pieces of furniture — after a while Gundham no longer questioned if his mother’s or his own prized possessions went missing — just to pay a bill. On Gundham’s eighteenth birthday, Fumiko surprised him by preparing him a Skong, the centerpiece of a traditional Novoselic coming-of-age ceremony. The two celebrated his birthday by themselves as Gundham shed his childhood and started the first day of the rest of his life.

Gundham did not fully realize it until after her death, but his mother, a strict, traditional woman whose love was not the sentimental type, had given her very life force to nurturing him and raising him a righteous man. Something else he realized then was that the Novoselic elite were, as he would often say, “pretty damn good at ignoring things.”

What was a lifetime of motherly guidance if there was no way for him to repay her efforts? Gundham loved his mother, had so much love in his freezing heart for her it embarrassed him. As she approached her forties, she more often wore the drained expression of a woman twice her age and with half her life experience. Her countenance acted as a shield; this way no one, not even her own son, could tell if she was proud or disappointed or angry and that cold neutrality protected her more than anyone but she realized. Gundham inherited that from her as well; his older teachers and tutors would melt as they grew charmed by him, gushing over how gifted he is, mature for his age, while his peers found him creepy and avoided him. One day, Gundham laid in his mother’s hands his beloved wool scarf the color of hollyhocks — it had belonged to Fumiko in her girlhood and both of them agreed upon themselves never to sell it — and told her exactly how he would repay her for never failing in raising him.

At eighteen, Gundham Tanaka enlisted in the Army of the Kingdom of Novoselic. 

That was the first time in his life he saw his mother cry.

Eighteen years ridden with guilt and repressed memories and raising her son as she would have raised herself flashed before Fumiko’s eyes. This time would be the second that a soldier had crushed her spirit. She did not speak, for she could not muster up the courage to speak, and yet the pain in her inky brown eyes said what words could never. She was not mad at her boy for choosing the path he did, as she understood. She would never be as angry with him as he was with himself for the same reason. Her long hair, jet black with roots of gray from stress, framed her gloomy face. She flashed her son a haunting smile, one he would not understand now but would know all too well once he embraced the empty feeling of not knowing what to do except smile. 

Gundham always did have his father’s eyes.

Fumiko Tanaka died of a heart attack five years after the beginning of the war, never having tasted the unconditional love with which she provided others. Her body was cremated and her funeral unattended.

Though the atrocity behind his own birth gave him a special disdain for the military, he enlisted for multiple reasons. Not only did the salary pay off his mother’s bare necessities back home, it filled a void inside him. The life of a military man was one of adventure, prestige, and brotherhood. Novoselic citizens greatly respected the armed forces. The entire kingdom ordered school and work off to bid the soldiers their farewell the day the country declared war. In addition to that, Gundham knew nothing of boredom or not being stimulated enough. The way the army trained a man honed his attention to detail so that not even the movement of a mosquito would go unnoticed.

The military also had a charming sort of camaraderie embedded in its lifestyle. People from all walks of life, the rich and the poor, the sheltered and experienced, all races and histories and reasons enlisted. With his fellow soldiers, Gundham was not Japanese or a Tanaka or any label that defined him in his past. He was their brother and nothing less.

The army saw Gundham mature a lifetime in six years. A young, naïve boy became a cold and calculated man, and a man whittled down to a purpose. Gundham saw fresh faces of all kinds show up for training, and yet his mind would not let him acknowledge that he was one of them. He never could relate to their mindsets; he carried with him the demeanor of a man twice his age. Still, he saw these boys in positions he knew well and because of that could almost feel what they felt. Some had great trouble hiding their nervousness, evident in their trembling hands and vigilant eyes. Some were gung ho and spirited, trying to ease the anxiety of the new recruits in the former category and holding on the tips of their tongues a thirst civilian life could never quench. Gundham learned to treasure the sight of such youth and vitality.

It would only last so long before they would start dying before his eyes.

The battlefield massacred those young men in droves like pigs in a slaughterhouse. Each man sacrificed to the horrors of war was another pair of parents that would never again hold their son, another wife or girlfriend forever wary of love and being loved, another best friend left lonely and overwhelmed with the burden of grief. The men that did survive combat were better off dead. In six years Gundham saw men become disabled, alcoholics, suicidal, overcome by unadulterated despair. He saw them fall headfirst into fates worse than death. The worst part was knowing there was nothing he could do for them but let them go.

The dirt and blood and shame would never come off his hands. It would always be there in his nightmares. Even in his own mind he would always move to the tune of bullets. Imagining the contortions in the faces of those men, their youthful cheek caressed by death’s unforgiving hand, made his heart beat like gunfire. A sickening sense of dread wrapped around him like layers of bandages.

“Tanaka!”

Gundham’s eyes shot open. The scream of the medic that held his paralyzed body the day he’d been shot echoed in his mind. The lullaby of the battlefield began to fade, giving way to the silence of reality. The sound of his own heartbeat throbbed in his ears. He felt cold and tingly, and his body shook from fear. He breathed from his mouth, quickly and audibly, and felt none of the energy he needed to even blink. He was no longer on the battlefield surrounded by death, but rather under blankets in the compact, cozy house he once shared with his mother. 

It would take a lifetime for his mind to register that he would not be on the battlefield again for the rest of his life.

The gray-eyed nurse from the hospital had told him once in passing that she’d seen men like him relive their war memories even in their sleep. Gundham blinked once and then closed both his lips. He breathed a long sigh of relief from his nose and let his heartbeat regulate itself. He checked for his gun by his bedside even though he had none anymore, as muscle memory told him to do so every morning since his discharge. He pushed his blankets to his feet and rolled his body off the mattress. Landing on one foot before the other, Gundham felt the dizziness of his legs regaining circulation before dragging himself to the bathroom.

Nearly two months after his discharge from the army, his tousled, shadow gray hair had grown an inch or two. Two wide, platinum blond streaks ran through the front and diverged from his middle part; what doctors considered a medical mystery when he was a boy proved no detriment to his health and was therefore treated as natural. He rubbed his left eye, his gray eye rather than his red one, and noticed that creases from his pillow had imprinted themselves onto his cheek. He turned on the faucet and splashed icy water over his face.

Gundham did not rush in brushing his teeth, as he had during his army days, but rather took the extra time he still couldn’t believe he had. He felt no need to eat breakfast most of the time; he would wait until lunchtime to cook a real meal. Yesterday’s newspaper lay on the circular, wooden table, the large, printed word “peace” in all capital letters on the front cover staring him down as he approached it.

Yesterday, nearly all of Europe celebrated the end of the fighting, and arguably no one celebrated with as much joy as the Kingdom of Novoselic. The Novoselic armed forces fought in total war for nearly six years, losing a shocking amount of men for how small the kingdom itself was. Civilians fought battles of their own during the war; the economy struggled, and loved ones grew depressed waiting for soldiers to come home. Yesterday, the newspaper delivery boys bicycled down the neighborhood streets with more enthusiasm than usual. Yesterday, the whole country held street parties among themselves and welcomed soldiers home and sang victory songs and no one dare told them not to.

The king and queen, one month before today, set off to negotiate among their fellow world leaders and left their daughter in charge of domestic affairs. There was no doubt among the kingdom that the heiress to the throne could lead her people well or fill in as commander in chief of the armed forces while her parents were away. Though the demure, decorous young woman specialized in overseeing social or charity events, she did have a natural talent for politics. Despite her young age, it was unanimously believed that at any time she would be ready to take on the duties of a queen.

Yesterday’s celebrations carried into today and would carry into weeks from now. Though Gundham understood, he felt no need to join them.

He was no social butterfly, but even he could enjoy the occasional small gathering without feeling drained. These country-wide celebrations, however, were a different story. Not only did he feel overwhelmed simply watching the jubilation play out from behind his windows, something felt off. The kingdom had lived by rations and warnings for years and for all of it to end so quickly was almost anticlimactic. If he expressed himself to anyone he could imagine them telling him that he of all people should be elated that the fighting is over. While he was relieved that no one else would ever again be sacrificed to the battlefield, he felt ashamed for not being satisfied.

He knew his fellow soldiers felt the same way as he did, especially those like him who had no family or lover at home to give them their hero’s welcome. A soldier knew better than anyone what it was like to have a purpose so embedded within you that you became the purpose itself. When that purpose serves no purpose of its own, neither do you. He knew that those who had lost loved ones in the war felt the same as well. He knew that anyone that had stared down this war, and had it stare right back, felt as he did.

Before he dressed himself, he went back to thebathroom for one more silent moment. The lights, tinted yellow and softly flickering, illuminated his body as he leaned forward towards the mirror. He stared into his own eyes for a moment as both his hands lay flat on the off-white, ceramic countertop. Gundham sighed, letting his chest fall and his head hang. Now he stared in the face a disfigured mesh of skin, an entity in itself like a tumor fixed below his chest at his right side. 

The nurse had told him to expose his wound to open air while he slept and reapply his bandages at least once daily for up to two months. Sometimes he would skip the bandages for a day and expose the wound to the fabric of his clothing. It hurt, but he felt it was necessary, as he kept in mind that he couldn’t keep bandaging himself forever. He followed the rest of her instructions, listening when she said not to sleep on his injured side and be careful with heavy lifting and check the wound for infection whenever he could, because following instructions was the only thing that kept him sane. Now he no longer felt the need to follow instructions, because he’d grown bored and decided upon himself he was fine enough. 

During his last two months he had lived off the bare minimum. The pay he received for having served guaranteed coverage of his necessities, a situation his mother would never have been able to boast about. He spent much of his time looking for a job and the remainder watching his mailbox for updates. Sometimes he would try to break the monotony by contemplating his life choices over a drink, and there at his favorite bar he met one of his closest friends, but eventually he would fall back into grueling routine. The only thing missing from his daily life as a civilian that he had as a soldier was the battlefield itself.

Throwing on a beige, collared T-shirt and high waisted trousers in a darker shade, Gundham went to the kitchen again. He remembered the days he spent there in his childhood cooking meals by his mother’s side and moved stiffly as the memories sunk in. He prepared himself a cup of English breakfast tea, finishing it off with a splash of milk and a pinch of sugar, and sat at the mealtime table. He found himself staring down the headline on yesterday’s paper with a strange sense of melancholy.

On the cover of the newspaper was not only the word “peace,” but also subheadings across the page detailing the German surrender and a photograph of an elated family waving the Novoselic flag. Gundham flipped the page with his fingertips and there behind the cover was another photo, this one spanning nearly half the page and depicting Princess Sonia of Novoselic. 

The grainy, monochrome photo showed the young lady clad in a white pencil dress with a corsage of two roses, beaming and surrounded by a sizeable crowd. Under the photo read an announcement that she would address the nation by the next day. That meant she would speak today, he thought, if she had not spoken already. Gundham had always perceived the princess to be somewhat of an airhead. However, he realized that could merely be an image. She could be maintaining the façade of the nation’s sweetheart to keep the public from realizing her true potential. If she could maintain both pragmatic leadership and her trademark ditziness, she truly was smart.

Once he finished his tea, he set his empty teacup down on the table and headed for his mailbox. The wooden, painted black container was empty except for a lone pink envelope. Gundham fished it out and noticed on the flap a stamp in black ink; the seal depicted a pheasant flying in front of a human hand, the same symbol present on the Novoselic flag. He tore open the envelope and scanned over the letter inside:

_Dear Capt. Gundham Tanaka,  
The Kingdom of Novoselic thanks you for your service to your country. It is the pleasure of the royal family to invite you to a party in celebration of peace and the hard work of the armed forces on May 26, 1945 at 10:00 p.m.. If you plan to attend, please return this document back to the address of the sender written on this envelope by May 19, 1945 and on the day of, dress your best and report to the front entrance of Aberdeen Castle. If you plan to bring one additional guest to the event, please write his or her full name and home address in the blank space below._

Gundham’s thumb pushed on the paper with so much force that it left a crinkle. All he had seen and all his fellow men had gone through for a thank-you and a party.

He would have considered going if this party were not such a mocking display of privilege. That was all it would ever be. The royals were privileged, Gundham thought, privileged for being able to end the bloodshed on the battlefield with a click of a pen. Privileged for being able to sate the ego of those who did not know any better with a thank-you and a party.

Stone-faced and blood boiling, he stormed back into his house and set the invitation down on top of the newspaper. Little did he know that he would come to acknowledge it again for the same reason he vowed not to. 


	3. Chapter 3

Within the palace walls, painted white and textured like a fresh cut of wood, was an aura of cordiality. Pale green carpet rested under the feet of those who walked the endless halls. Regal portraits of Novoselic monarchs past displayed both the majestic image of each ruler and the extraordinary skill of Novoselic-bred artists. Each photorealistic pair of painted eyes seemed to follow those who walked the palace halls. Chandeliers forged from crystals and rimmed with solid gold tinted the rooms with shades of white and pale yellow. The building embraced both the luxury of a palace and the protective function of a castle. It was average in size, but it had its way of drawing someone in and leaving them lost.

One bedroom in particular radiated personality, deviating from the professional aura of the rest of the castle. Located at each side at the feet of a white, wooden door were two large marble statues of pheasants in flight perched on aging stone pillars. A bookcase, each of five shelves filled with no room for new titles, stood roughly three-quarters of the room tall. A silk blanket, patterned in flaxen stitches like that of a Persian rug, covered a twin bed under a golden canopy. On top of a mahogany dressing table standing farthest from the door was an ancient-looking phonograph, a circular cosmetic mirror, two dusty stacks of gently used books, and a russet leather briefcase. Multiple white, velvet chairs positioned along the walls faced an imaginary point at the center of the room. Standing tall at that point and watching herself unmoving in a rectangular floor mirror was Princess Sonia of Novoselic.

Christened Sonia Nevermind as World War I came to a close, the princess lived her life under strict protection and lofty expectations. She was an only child and, although an extrovert, mingled mostly with her family and housekeepers outside of social or charity events. The public adored her demure, cheerful image and had thus given her the nickname of the nation’s sweetheart. She received her education exclusively through tutors employed by her family until she reached eighteen, and even after that did she never stop studying. In traditional Novoselic fashion, she was knowledgeable enough in warfare and its machinery to operate a tank before she turned ten. In the fashion expected of the Novoselic heiress to the throne, she took great pleasure in learning and applying its techniques. She spoke over thirty languages by the age of fifteen and had attended her first world leaders’ summit alone by sixteen. In her free time she cleaned, took nature walks around the courtyard, or read files of unsolved cases and journals on the art of the occult.

Sonia lived burrowed deep in the lap of luxury, sometimes forgetting that not everyone had both basic needs and lavish wants met as she did. Sometimes she found herself expecting from others fulfillment of the grandiose demands alongside which she had grown, and in those times she had to remind herself to allow non-royals the luxury of not having to adhere to such royal standards. 

Occasionally, her mind would wander. She could have the world in her hands if she requested it so, but sometimes she would wonder. Was it selfish of her to want more?

If she was not a princess, she would have to live amongst her peers instead of her subjects. If she was not a princess, her business trips would become vacations. If she was not a princess, she could tip over the pedestal that the world placed her on. If she had never been a princess, she could break the chains of expectations and untie the noose of legacy and just live. 

In those times, she had to snap herself out of her own fantasy and remind herself that she was a princess before she was a person.

Someone called out to her. “What do you think, Your Highness?”

Sonia beamed. “It’s beautiful, Miss Tojo.”

A tall, stately woman pulled up the zipper on the back of the princess’s dress. Her gloved hands dusted off any lint that rested on Sonia’s narrow, tulle skirt. Emerging toward somewhere Sonia could see her, she tucked a section of mint green hair behind her ear and smiled back. 

Kirumi Tojo was not only the Novoselic royal family’s most trusted housekeeper, but also the princess’s closest confidant. She was a lady that appreciated life’s simple joys, like the written word and a glass of champagne. She was selfless; she valued the honor of the Kingdom of Novoselic more than she valued her own life. She enjoyed fixing the unruly and structuring the unstructured. Secretly she longed to have been born Novoselic; she fled her home country of World War II-ridden Japan in 1939 and one year later won a prestigious opportunity to tend to the needs of the royal family.

Sonia thought highly of her housekeeper. Kirumi had not only seen her at her most un-princesslike but also seen her emerge as a leader during the war. Kirumi had told her many a time before that she wouldn’t mind if she felt more comfortable referring to her by her first name, but Sonia refused, stating that as long as Kirumi would call her Her Highness, she would call her Miss Tojo.

Kirumi scanned Sonia from the bottom up, playing out a long pause. “Something’s missing.” she muttered. “Please wait here.” Picking up the box pleated skirt of her housekeeper’s garb, she headed for the door.

Princess Sonia of Novoselic was fluent in over thirty languages. She held the occasional chat with Kirumi in Japanese, negotiated sanctions in German, translated conversations for a housekeeper who spoke only Portuguese, and read collections of poetry in their original Hindi. One language she did have trouble understanding was that of romance. Though the Romance languages were her favorites to study, their namesake never set itself right on Sonia’s tongue. A Novoselic lady was careful in her choice of to whom she gave away her heart, and the heart of a Novoselic princess was heavily guarded not by her own will but by ever-changing standards and fixed tradition. Therefore, Sonia knew nothing about how to translate words like “love” and “intimacy” into a language she could understand.

The love others found in someone else, Sonia found in her country. Though the duties of a princess were restrictive, they provided her the order and structure on which she thrived. As a princess, her kingdom would remember her for generations to come. The era of Her Majesty, of Queen Sonia of Novoselic, rested on the tips of her fingers. In addition, no matter how great the distance her upbringing was from that of the many, her country made her feel like she belonged. She shared the Novoselic work ethic and competence that gave the nation its backbone. She found that the legacy and pride of her job made the pill of accepting her destiny as a princess a bit easier to swallow.

No word in any language could describe the satisfaction Sonia got from not only finding her purpose, but being her purpose.

Kirumi slipped through the open door and locked eyes with Sonia. In both her hands laid two elbow-length silk gloves, baby pink to match the color and material of the gown. Sonia thanked her and donned the gloves. She glanced down at Kirumi’s hands and noticed a thin, golden chain hanging from her finger. Kirumi slinked behind her and placed the necklace around her neck; a circular pendant of an opal, her birthstone, dropped to the portrait neckline of her dress.

Kirumi left Sonia to examine herself in the mirror for a moment, and then placed a velvet chair in front of the desk. “Sit down, Your Highness.” she instructed in a warm tone only the princess had ever heard. 

Sonia approached the chair before stopping in her tracks. “Would you mind—”

“Of course,” Kirumi said reflexively, running her fingers over the titles in the bookcase, “which one were you reading before I came?”

“On the second shelf from the top, there is a black binder labelled ‘Genocide Jack.’” Sonia replied, sitting down and bringing her cosmetic mirror in front of her.

“Genocide Jack,” Kirumi mumbled before her fingers stopped to touch one black binder of many. “Another unsolved case for today?” she said as she lifted the thick binder from its shelf and handed it to Sonia.

“Thank you,” Sonia said. She flipped through the binder and scanned for her lost place. The place she had recovered was near the end of the file and detailed gruesome photos of the handiwork of an infamous English serial murderer, aptly nicknamed Genocide Jack. The bodies of the victims, all men of varying ages, were propped up on the wall with two pairs of scissors through their wrists, in the manner of a crucification. Behind the bodies, painted on the wall in each victim’s own blood, was always the word “bloodlust.” These descriptions were the only way the public could know exactly what had happened to these men. However, copies of police documents included gritty photos like these and were readily available to the members of the royal family. 

Kirumi, holding a boar bristle hairbrush and a hair fork adorned with two roses the color of cherry blossoms, propped the items on the desk and snuck a glance at the photos in Sonia’s reading material. She let out an “oh,” and then a nervous laugh.

“You read police documents like mystery novels.” she said, working bobby pins out of Sonia’s fine, pincurled hair. “What exactly do you see in them?”

Sonia examined each aged, monochrome photo. “I feel as entertained from studying unsolved cases as I would from any mystery novel.” She swiveled her head toward Kirumi and her eyes lit up. “I like these more, though. I like them because they‘re real.”

“Please keep your head still, Your Highness.” Sonia apologized and faced front again. Kirumi brushed through Sonia’s pearl blond hair as she blazed through the pages in the binder. Sonia had worn her hair in pincurls from the moment she woke that day, securing their form with a headscarf in preparation for her celebratory waves.

It was Sonia’s uninfluenced idea to host a party. The day after the fighting had officially ceased across Europe was the day she addressed the nation and commended both the Novoselic armed forces and civilians alike for their hard work. Hours before the official peace announcement, when the leaders of the world had neared a close to their negotiations as to not if but when the war would end, Sonia and the palace employees had spent a full day printing invitations and mailing them to the home addresses of every soldier and military nurse registered in her family’s records. Not many disproved, at least not in public, of the fact that the royals lived in luxury while more Novoselic citizens than ever lived in poverty. They‘ve worked so hard to keep us safe from our enemy, they would claim, of course they deserved every bit of it.

Of the roughly 70,000 people that called the Kingdom of Novoselic home, almost 10,000 enlisted and a little under 8,500 survived. to show up at the palace. Sonia had received exactly 7,049 returned invitations before the deadline.

If she could, Sonia thought, she would attend every last street party and parade and celebration of victory the Novoselic populace held amongst themselves. She shared the excitement of those eager to live again as they had before the war. To her there was nothing more beautiful than an entire nation overcome by joy and nothing more disheartening than one in collective grief. Let the people celebrate, she would say, they deserved it.

“Genocide Jack, this one?” Kirumi asked. Sonia nodded. “I remember hearing my family in Japan talk about these murders just when they’d happened. I was only a little girl back then. That man not only shocked his own home country, but word of his crimes spread around the world.”

“Very interesting,” Sonia said. “One of the reasons I enjoy reading about unsolved cases is that I like to try and solve them.”

“Really?”

“From everything I’ve read here, I believe Genocide Jack may not even be a man.”

Kirumi cocked an eyebrow and laughed, pinning the roses to the right side of Sonia’s head. “To me, a woman being able to handle men’s lives with such cruelty is unheard of. Why would you say that?”

Sonia eagerly flipped sections back, landing at two laminated police documents detailing a transcript of a conversation. “In some of these cases, the police had caught a teenage schoolgirl fleeing the scene. They took her in for questioning more than once, but each time she would panic and state she had no memory of any kind of murder.”

“Could she not have lied?”

“I remember reading once about the diagnostic criteria for multiple personality disorder, and the behavior of this girl was a textbook case.”

Kirumi admired not only Sonia’s intellect — who but the princess would solve unsolved cases for fun, and with such conviction? — but also her fascination. The girl was never bored, and her eager mind could find an interesting aspect of even the most boring parts of life. Kirumi, someone who spent so much of her day around her, took comfort in being able to affirm that with more confidence than any member of the public.

“If the murderous fiend truly is a woman, perhaps we should start referring to her as Genocide Jill instead.”

There was a twinkle in Sonia’s pale blue eyes as she shut the binder. “Maybe so.”

Kirumi reached for a red, plastic box seated below the desk. She looked over its contents and pulled out two circular containers, one the size of the palm of a hand and the other half that, and a makeup brush. “How about a more modest look tonight, Your Highness?”

Sonia twisted her seat in Kirumi’s direction and craned her neck towards her, eyes closed. It wasn’t until Kirumi brushed champagne pink blush along the princess’s dewy skin that she truly admired her professional beauty. It wasn’t until she dabbed peach eyeshadow on her exposed lids that she became lost in everything but her eyes. The only thing more regal than her status was her aura.

“By the way,” Kirumi asked, “have you sent out the approvals for the Orders of Bravery? You did ask me to remind you to do that.”

“Yes, I believe I have. Remind me of something else, Miss Tojo,” Sonia said while Kirumi returned the makeup to its box, “exactly how many people are we expecting to come to the palace tonight?”

“If I counted correctly, we amassed exactly 7,049 returned invitations.”

The color drained itself from Sonia’s face. “Seven thousand people,” she muttered as she rose from her seat and placed a hand on her desk to regain her balance.

Kirumi turned to face her, flashing her a warm smile. “Might I remind you, Your Highness, that during these past six years you have performed duties that would put those of a hostess to shame. You have no reason to be nervous.”

“I am not nervous. I am only concerned for this party’s outcome is all.” Sonia tried her best to remind herself, though the circumstance of the event itself proved more intimate than most, to treat it like any other public event. She clasped her hands below her waist, and Kirumi held them both with her own.

“And your concern is valid. During these two weeks of preparation, us employees worked tirelessly to create a perfect, festive environment.” Kirumi stroked Sonia’s wavy bangs with one hand. “Might I also remind you that all morning and afternoon you spoke personally with as many people involved as you could just to make sure they didn’t overwork themselves.” Sonia remembered consulting with each of the housekeepers that had moved the tables and chairs to the courtyard, the orchestra that now rehearsed in the main hall directly below her, and the caterers that had received the money and resources for quality food — a rarity so soon after the war, a rarity coming from an economy that had suffered such great losses — from the royals’ own savings. 

Tonight truly would be a night of rarity. Tonight, seven thousand Novoselic citizens would dine over candlelight and camaraderie, on their most elaborate meal in six years, in the endless courtyard behind Aberdeen Castle. Tonight, servants of a country that very much deserved it would savor a mere glimpse of the beauty of victory.

Storing Kirumi’s comforts in the back of her mind, Sonia rushed to her window. 

“Is something the matter, Your Highness?”

“On the contrary,” Sonia replied. The sky was a canvas tonight; little white drops of stardust complemented the inky blackness above the horizon. In fact, the world itself was a canvas, and Sonia Nevermind held a brand-new paintbrush in between her fingers.

Kirumi‘s eyes wandered to the clock mounted on the wall. “It’s nine forty-two. People should be lining up outside by now.”

“I will be right there.” Sonia spun around in pursuit of the door, but Kirumi stopped her before she could reach it. 

“I’ve already set up a station for myself outside. I’ve got a little table, and a list of everyone that responded so I can mark them off.” Kirumi rambled. “I need to go and check on the caterers anyway. I’ll call you down to the courtyard soon, I promise.” She hurried out of the room, appearing to glide across the floor.

Living as a princess required Sonia to be everything at once. She had to be a commander in chief, a socialite, a politician, a hostess. She had to be dominant, submissive, prominent, patient. She had to be the many, and she had to be the few. She had to be everything the world wanted and more.

All she needed now was to be stable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi I’m sorry but I think I want to discontinue this to focus more on my studies. I apologize to anyone that’s been waiting so long for an update, but I really want to allocate most, if not all my attention to my schoolwork and college applications at the moment.


End file.
